Dolmen is a cosmic horror Souls-like, now on Kickstarter

As popular as Dark Souls has been, there’s been a shocking lack of imitators over the years. Sure, there’s Lords of the Fallen and a few others, but you’d expect Souls-like to be a genre and not just a description of difficulty by now. Developers Massive Work Studio have a plan to fill in the gap a little further with a new sci-fi horror take called Dolmen.

You’ll be confronted with ancient alien horrors on a forgotten planet called Revion Prime, armed with an array of melee and ranged weapons to take on cosmic threats. Melee battles appear to have the methodical pace you’d expect, while guns pull things over the shoulder for an almost Dead Space-like version of the action. Shots from ranged weapons all have elemental effects for varied enemy debuffs.

An energy system splits reserves between ammo for your ranged weapons, power-ups for melee, or healing, forcing you to make strategic decisions about how to use those resources. You’ll get stronger from levelling up or crafting new weapons and armor through materials found in-game.

Dolmen just launched on Kickstarter with a modest goal of $90,000, though the budget for the “full experience” – six levels, multiplayer, and plenty of enemies and equipment – is set at $800,000. A demo is available to backers at the lowest, $10 tier.

The estimated delivery date for the game is December 2019 across PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Massive Work Studio have some experience in building AAA-scale games, with developers whose credits include Diablo 3, World of Warcraft, and Injustice 2.